Richard Whittall:

The Globalist's Top Ten Books in 2016: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Middle East Eye: "

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer is one of the weightiest, most revelatory, original and important books written about sport"

“The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer has helped me immensely with great information and perspective.”

Bob Bradley, former US and Egyptian national coach: "James Dorsey’s The Turbulent World of Middle Eastern Soccer (has) become a reference point for those seeking the latest information as well as looking at the broader picture."

Alon Raab in The International Journal of the History of Sport: “Dorsey’s blog is a goldmine of information.”

Play the Game: "Your expertise is clearly superior when it comes to Middle Eastern soccer."

Andrew Das, The New York Times soccer blog Goal: "No one is better at this kind of work than James Dorsey"

David Zirin, Sports Illustrated: "Essential Reading"

Change FIFA: "A fantastic new blog'

Richard Whitall of A More Splendid Life:

"James combines his intimate knowledge of the region with a great passion for soccer"

Christopher Ahl, Play the Game: "An excellent Middle East Football blog"

James Corbett, Inside World Football

Friday, July 31, 2015

Walking around Qatar’s monumental Aspire Dome sports academy,
coach Fred Engh noticed kids playing soccer on an indoor field big enough to accommodate
four teams simultaneously during a break in an annual gathering of hundreds of
sports leaders designed to project the Gulf state as an innovative, socially
responsible global sports hub.

Mr. Engh’s initial impression that the government was
catering to the whole of its population, a majority of whom are poorly paid
migrant workers whose restrictive labour and working conditions have become a
focal point of criticism since Qatar won the hosting rights for the 2022 World
Cup were however quickly dashed.

“It looked great and I was happy to see that the Qatar
people cared enough to allow kids to come in and play in this magnificent
facility. I was wrong. Not every local kid was allowed. It was open to only
those that had money,” Mr. Engh said in a recent Huffington
Post column.

Chatting with a group of nearby migrant workers recruited to
keep Aspire Dome clean, Mr. Engh quickly discovered that neither they nor their
children had access to the soccer field. In response to Mr. Engh’s question
whether any of their children were among those, the workers “looked at me as if
I were some kind of world-class comedian trying my best to humour them,” he
wrote. Asked what facilities were available for poor kids, the workers replied:
"Nowhere."

Nobody seemed bothered by Qatar’s segregation of rich and
poor and marginalization of a majority of the population when Mr. Engh recited
his experience during one of the gathering’s many sessions that are often
geared to projecting Qatar’s support for the disadvantaged. It was, he wrote, “Business
as usual. The haves and the have-nots, Qatar style.”

Mr. Engh’s encounter with the workers happened three years
ago. Qatar has since announced lofty standards for the working and living
conditions of migrant workers, including the
construction of seven new cities to accommodate those working on World
Cup-related construction sight. It has also said that reforms of its
controversial kafala or sponsorship system that puts workers at the mercy of
their employers would be enshrined in law by the end of this year.

For now, Qatar’s promises remain just that, promises.
Credibility Qatar built in recent years by announcing the standards in for a
conservative, autocratic Gulf state unprecedented collaboration with human
rights and labour activists has been thoroughly wasted.

Qatar’s credibility has been undermined by its failure to
take meaningful steps that would have enhanced confidence even if in some
instances they would have broached the existential issues underlying Qatari
resistance to change or addressed material concerns. It was further jeopardized
by seeming Qatari backtracking on baby steps that held out the promise of
change, and its repeated detention of foreign journalists seeking to report
independently and unfettered on the plight of migrant workers.

At the core of Qatari resistance, is the fear of the Gulf
state’s citizenry, who account for a mere 12 percent of the population, that
granting foreigners any rights risks opening a Pandora’s Box that could lead to
non-Qataris gaining political rights and easier access to citizenship.
Similarly, many Qataris are anxious that engagement with the non-Qatari
majority that could give it a stake in society would amount to acknowledging
that their multi-ethnic, multi-religious demography is in fact a multicultural
society in more than just a slogan – a step that would threaten to delude the
Gulf state’s conservative, tribal, mono-culture.

Mr. Engh put his finger on the problem but appears to have
overlooked these real life issues underlying effective segregation at the
Aspire Dome. His observations did however put a hole in Qatari rhetoric of the
value it attributes to foreigner that are helping it build a state-of-the art
infrastructure.

They highlighted the fact that Qatar like other Gulf states at
best views foreigners as guests obliged to leave when their professional
contracts expire. Rather than adhering to universally accepted concept of a
guest who is made to feel at home, Qatari policy is designed to ensure that
non-Qataris do not develop ties that could persuade them to want to make Qatar
their permanent home.

To be fair, Qatar is not unique in this. Even traditional
immigration societies like Australia appear hostile to migrants and the mood in
Europe has soured as tens of thousands of refugees from conflicts in the Middle
East and repressive regimes in Africa force their way onto the continent. Yet
Qatar in line with all Gulf states has preferred to fund aid to the refugees
rather than open its own doors.

Nonetheless, Qatar two years ago appeared to be tinkering
with its non-integration policy when it organized its first ever tournament for
soccer teams of foreign workers in which 16 teams participated. Qatari
officials at the time said they were considering a competition in which foreign
worker teams would play their Qatari counterpart.

The plan never materialized and the chances of foreign
workers and their kids being allowed to play in the Aspire Dome are without a
demonstration of political will to introduce real reform virtually zero. Qatar’s
credibility was further damaged by its crude efforts in the last year to fill
stadia during international matches by bussing in foreign workers who were paid
to attend a match rather than given the opportunity and access that spectators
would expect to have.

An announcement earlier this month by California-based big
data software company Sysorex that it had concluded a contract to deploy in
Qatar a mobile “worker locationing and asset management platform” that would
track migrant workers in their living quarters as well as in living quarters,
recreation, healthcare, and retail facilities that they frequent sparked
criticism from human rights and labour activists.

They denounced the move despite Sysorex’s effort to project
the platform as a tool that would provide “insight into how residents flow
through the community, which facilities are most popular, and where
improvements can be made” as well as a technology that would improve first
response in cases of emergency.

Citing the multiple problems with the sponsorship system,
Human Rights Watch’s Nicholas McGeehan quipped: “Passport confiscation,
recruitment fees, sponsorship-based employment, the prohibition of trade
unions, and absence of grievance mechanisms combine to a toxic effect in Qatar.
The last thing we need is yet another control mechanism.”

James M.
Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute
of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the
same title.

Former Saudi Foreign Minister Prince
Saud al-Faisal once compared the bond with the U.S. to a “Muslim marriage,” or
one that wasn’t necessarily monogamous.

The
kingdom’s recent overtures to other partners suggest the relationship is going
through another reappraisal because of the landmark accord with regional rival
Iran. After visiting Russia and France last month, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman returned home with $23 billion of aircraft and energy contracts.

“Trust
between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. has been damaged by the Iran nuclear deal,” said
Paul Sullivan, a Middle East specialist at Georgetown University in Washington.
“Many in Saudi Arabia feel abandoned by the U.S.”

The U.S., the world’s largest arms
supplier, and China each accounted for about 13 percent of Saudi trade last
year

They
have hit the rocks before, most notably in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks mainly by Saudi citizens. Yet the U.S.-led rapprochement with
Iran raises the prospect of a tectonic shift in the Middle East that the Saudis
haven’t had to contend with since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Tehran.

For
the Saudis, business with Russia can dilute dependence on the U.S., while for
the more isolated Russians it’s all about winning friends and getting
investment.

“Historically,
the relationship between Russia and Saudi Arabia is one of mistrust,” said Hani
Sabra, head analyst for the Middle East at Eurasia Group. “However, as a result
of changing regional and global geopolitics, the opportunity for both sides to
consider closer ties in the future is ripe.”

More Assertive

Changes
made to the Saudi royal court by King Salman marked a shift toward a younger
generation and underscored its more assertive role as the Middle East endures
one of its most violent periods. Mohammed bin Salman, 29, was elevated to deputy
crown prince after taking the post of defense minister in January and leading
the campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

In
Riyadh, Saudi officials tell diplomats that they worry Iran will use the
nuclear agreement to deepen its involvement in Arab affairs as sanctions are
lifted and its economy and revenue expand. Former Saudi ambassador to the U.S.,
Bandar bin Sultan, wrote this month in a newspaper editorial that the Iran deal
would “wreak havoc” on the Middle East.

“Considering
the unprecedented turmoil in the region, the Saudis are trying to keep all
their options open,” said Fahad Nazer, a political analyst at consulting
company JTG Inc. in Virginia who has worked for the Saudi embassy in
Washington.

Like
Iran, Russian President Vladimir Putin is an ally of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad, whose opponents in a four-year civil war are backed by the Saudis.
Putin’s support, though, is seen in Riyadh as wavering, said Nazer.

New
Direction?

During
the deputy crown prince’s visit to St. Petersburg in June, the Public
Investment Fund agreed to jointly spend $10 billion with Russia on projects
involving infrastructure, agriculture, medicine and logistics. In previous
years, the Saudi fund wasn’t openly pursuing foreign investment.

After
meeting with Putin, he flew to Paris, where 12 billion euros ($13.3 billion) in
contracts were signed. They included a 3 billion-euro export finance accord
between credit insurer Coface SA and the Public Investment Fund. The two
countries also agreed to feasibility studies for two nuclear reactors, and
Saudi Arabia agreed to buy 30 Airbus A320s and 20 Airbus A330s for 8 billion
euros.

“There
is a more strategic direction to investing abroad now that follows wider
foreign policy interests,” said John Sfakianakis, the Riyadh-based director of
the Middle East at investment company Ashmore Group.

‘Dollar Diplomacy’

Saudi
Arabia has looked elsewhere before to demonstrate it’s not dependent on the
U.S. After the collapse of trust following the terror attacks in which 15 of
the 19 perpetrators were Saudi citizens, trade with China duly increased.

The
U.S., the world’s largest arms supplier, and China each accounted for about 13
percent of Saudi trade last year. In 2001, U.S. imports and exports made up 19
percent of Saudi trade versus 4 percent for China. Russia, the second-largest
seller of military hardware, barely registered either year.

“Financial
muscle gets you only so far,” said James Dorsey, a senior fellow in
international studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. “I
doubt it will fundamentally sway Washington. Saudi leadership realizes that
irrespective of its views of U.S. reliability and policies, there is no country
that can substitute it.”

U.S.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter met with King Salman and Prince Mohammed on
July 22 in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, where he tried to reassure them that the
U.S. wasn’t wavering in its security commitment.

Saudi
Arabia had the biggest percentage increase among the top 15 spenders on defense
worldwide last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute. Outlays rose 17 percent to $80.8 billion. That’s as the halving of
oil prices from 12 months ago reduces government revenue.

“For
now, that will not stop it from engaging in dollar diplomacy,” said Dorsey.
“It’s one of its foremost assets.”

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

This month’s premier league final between Cairo’s two
storied clubs, Al Ahli SC and Al Zamalek SC, once the world’s most violent
derby, was more than a clash between two soccer giants. It was a clash between
management styles and diametrically opposed approaches towards militant, highly
politicized, street battle-hardened soccer fans. The clash highlighted the
advantages of engagement as opposed to the risk of radicalization and
escalating political violence.

On the pitch like on the streets and university campuses of
Egypt, Zamalek’s emergence as this year’s Egyptian champion despite Ahli having
won the derby itself would seem to legitimize the club’s aggressive effort to
criminalize its fan base.

The facts on the ground, however, suggest that Al Ahli’s
engagement with its supporters has produced far better results, including greater
cooperation with a group that like its Zamalek counterpart played a key role in
the toppling in 2011 of President Hosni Mubarak and protests against all his
successors in the past four years.

Members of Ultras Ahlawy, the Al Ahli support group, and
Ultras White Knights (UWK), the

Zamalek fan group, form the core of prominent student
and youth groups that have been targeted by the government of general-turned-president
Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who in 2013 toppled Egypt’s only democratically elected
president, Mohammed Morsi, in a military coup. More than a thousand protesters
have been killed on Mr. Al Sisi’s watch while tens of thousands have been
incarcerated and thousands expelled from universities.

Zamalek president Mortada Mansour, a larger than life
figure, whose at times comical outbursts often persuade the government to
maintain a distance even though they support Mr. Al Sisi’s policies, charged
that Al Ahli’s victory on the pitch was due to “ghosts and jinns" and that
his assertions are “written in the holy Quran.”

More seriously, Mr. Mortada has identified the UWK and other
militant fans or ultras as enemies of the state aligned with the outlawed
Muslim Brotherhood. He succeeded earlier this year in persuading a court to ban
ultras as terrorists on par with the Muslim Brothers. In February, Mr. Mortada
took pride in taking responsibility for a confrontation at a Cairo stadium between
security forces and fans in which at least 20 supporters were killed.

Mr. Mortada, whose hard line mirrors the government’s tough
approach towards its opponents, took his battle earlier this month to Al Ahli
after thousands of Ultras Ahlawy were allowed to attend a training of their
team in preparation for the derby.

UWK, whom Mr. Mortada accuses of having tried to assassinate
him, are barred from Zamalek events. The Ahli fans reportedly used the training
to mock Mr. Mortada in chants and hurl abuse at him not only because he heads
their arch rival but as a result of his hard-line anti-ultras, pro-government
stance. They also demanded a lifting of the ban on spectators attending soccer
matches that has been in place for much of the four years since the fall of Mr.
Mubarak.

In response, Mr. Mortada accused Al Ahli president Mahmoud
Taha of allowing fans to “terrorise citizens” and of displaying a lack of
respect for the ministries of defense and interior that controls the security
forces. The interior ministry has been the main driver behind the ban. Mr.
Mortada said he had filed charges against Al Ahli president Mahmoud Taher for
hosting a terrorist organization.

Mr. Taha refused to be drawn by Mr. Mortada, noting in a
veiled criticism of the ban on spectators that the ultras had “set an example
to follow in terms of discipline, given how they had entered and left the
stadium despite their large numbers. Ahli, the leader of Arab and African
sports with its titles and trophies, refuses to be drawn into such matters …
while stressing its respect for different opinions and views,” Mr. Taha said.

While Mr. Mortada’s hard line reflects government policy,
Mr. Taha’s approach proved its value in December when Ahlawy fans stormed a
stadium hours before it was to host an African championship final in support of
their demand that they be allowed to attend the match.

In an unprecedented move, Mr. Taha stopped security forces
from violently evicting the fans and negotiated their peaceful departure in
exchange for interior ministry agreement to allow them into the stadium during
the match. The fans agreed as part of the deal to subject themselves to
security checks and not to disrupt the match, a promise they kept.

For a brief moment, the incident held out hope that the government
may be persuaded that engagement rather than brutal repression is more likely
to reduce tension and prevent radicalization among frustrated and angry youth
who lack social and economic prospects.

Ultimately, the government’s willingness to work with Mr.
Taha did not indicate a change of heart but a desire to ensure that the match
from which Al Ahli emerged as the continent’s champion went off without a
hitch.

If Mr. Taha’s soccer-focused approach has proven that
engagement produces results, Mr. Mortada and the government’s insistence on
brutal confrontation risks further escalation in a country that is fighting an
armed insurgency in the Sinai and is witnessing the sprouting of militant urban
groups that target security and judicial authorities.

“We had high hopes. We staged the revolution in 2011. The new
generation has nothing to lose. We recognize that football is political. That’s
why we are involved not only in football but also in politics. We oppose the
brutality of this regime and its pawns. Neither Sisi nor Mortada are interested
in politics. Their language is exclusively the language of repression,” said an
ultra who is also a student leader.

James M.
Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute
of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the
same title.

SINGAPORE — Getting rid of the patronage system and having independent bodies that monitor the monies global sports groups collect can stop the scourge of corruption that has plagued many sports organisations, including football’s world governing body FIFA, said award-winning investigative journalist James Dorsey.

These two fundamental reforms are needed, he said, for the billions of dollars governing bodies earned through channels like international television rights to benefit the sports constituencies they serve and not corrupt individuals.

In May, FIFA president Sepp Blatter abruptly announced his resignation four days after securing a fifth term in office after a United States-led arrest of several FIFA officials and senior sports marketing executives in a corruption probe believed to involve more than US$100 million (S$136.5 million) spanning more than two decades.

The Swiss authorities also launched an investigation into the Zurich-based FIFA’s awarding of hosting rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively which was shrouded by bribery allegations.

There is now a movement to limit the term of the FIFA presidency, but Dorsey, currently a senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), said this is not enough.

“Term limitations are fine, but there are two fundamental reforms that are sine qua non,” Dorsey, 63, told TODAY.

“Without those reforms there will be no real change. The first is the eradication of the patronage system.

“FIFA, as an NGO, has a large income that for a significant extent is distributed to national football associations (NFAs) to develop football. FIFA distributes this money and ultimately the president distributes it to who he likes and who he doesn’t.”

Dorsey suggests the monies meant for distribution to NFAs should be parked with an independent institution such a board of trustees to guarantee they will be used as intended.

FIFA, which made US$4.8 billion from last year’s World Cup in Brazil, may be part of the board, but it must also have other stakeholders, especially the NFAs and representatives of players, fans, sponsors as well as others not directly associated with the sport.

Added Dorsey: “It must be totally independent of FIFA, in terms of what happens with those monies, who gets them, and on what basis they are given out. This has been totally lacking.”

The second reform cited by Dorsey is for sports organisations like FIFA, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to have independent bodies that monitor them in the same way countries regulate financial institutions.

“They need some form of governance. Part of the problem of global sports is that associations like FIFA, the IOC and AFC, whoever they may be, are essentially a law unto themselves. There is no reason why they should be that,” said Dorsey, a two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee.

The AFC, in particular, has been in Dorsey’s sights since 2011. Three months ago he handed incriminating documents and a video to the Malay Mail that led to AFC general secretary Alex Soosay resigning over allegations that he ordered a cover-up during a 2012 PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) audit of the organisation’s accounts.

At that time, Dorsey had broken a story that a PwC report asserted AFC’s disgraced former president Mohammed bin Hammam had “used the AFC’s company bank accounts to facilitate personal transactions as if they were his personal bank accounts”. Bin Hammam was previously charged by FIFA in 2011 with offering bribes in his attempt to run against Blatter for control of the world body and has since been banned for life from the sport.

In an interview with TODAY, Dorsey noted that almost a third of the members of the AFC 25-member board are from the Middle East, including current president Salman Khalifa of Bahrain who was elected in 2013. “They are all members of either autocratic ruling families that govern their companies or family corporations. The last two presidents are from the Middle East and they rule the AFC the way their countries are ruled,” said Dorsey.

“The centrepoint of Salman’s last two years in office has been the centralisation of power, burying any attempt at reform or investigating allegations of corruption in the PwC report.”

James Dorsey is an award-winning journalist who won the 2003 Dolf van den Broek prize, and has written for publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He is to deliver a lecture entitled “FIFA’s Crisis: The Geopolitics of Football” at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies on Monday (July 20) at 3.30pm.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

A violent display of racism by extreme nationalist
supporters of storied Israeli football club Beitar Jerusalem coupled with recent
Ethiopian Israeli protests against discrimination and the government’s handling
of the capture of two Israelis by Hamas has moved racist attitudes towards
dark-skinned Jews and Israeli Palestinian up the government’s agenda.

Driving calls for the banning of La Familia, the racist
anti-Arab, anti-Muslim fan group of Beitar is concern about damage the group
did to Israel’s image abroad rather than a worrisome trend in society at a time
that Israel is anxious about the gathering momentum of calls to boycott,
disinvest from and sanction the Jewish state for its policy towards the West
Bank and Gaza.

Israeli foreign ministry officials charged that an incident
in Belgium in which Beitar fans waved flags of the outlawed racist Kach party
founded by assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane and threw flares and smoke guns on to
the pitch as well as a missile that hit a goalkeeper during their club’s Europa
League qualifier against Charleloi SC had damaged Israel’s international image.
La Familia hung the Kach flags next to the Israeli flag in the stadium. The
Israeli fans were welcomed in the stadium by neo-Nazi supporters of Charleroi
with swastikas and Palestinian flags.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the incident,
saying that he had discussed possible legal action against La Familia, believed
to have several thousand followers, with internal security minister Gilad Erdan.
“We will not allow them to besmirch the club’s entire fan base or harm the
country’s image,” Netanyahu said.

In an editorial liberal newspaper Haaretz warned that “the
problem is not Israel’s image in the world, but the overt racism that is fuelled
by exactly those same officials who are now condemning it. Netanyahu and (culture
and sports minister Miri) Regev are preaching to others what they themselves do
not practice. With their racist remarks (‘The Arabs are flocking to the polling
stations’), their conduct (threatening the funding of Arab cultural
institutions) and their antidemocratic legislation – which is so typical of the
government they head – they legitimize the phenomenon called Beitar Jerusalem,”
Haaretz said. The paper was referring to Mr. Netanyahu’s fearmongering during
the May election in which he warned that strong Palestinian participation
threatened the outcome of the vote.

Founded by the revanchist wing of the Zionist movement with
strong links to the right-wing nationalist Jewish underground in pre-state
Palestine, Beitar has long been a darling of the Israeli right that counted
nationalist leaders, including Mr. Netanyahu, among its supporters.

The only club to have consistently refused to hire a
Palestinian in a country in which Palestinians ranks among its top players, Beitar
has maintained its racist stance despite repeatedly being penalized by the
Israel Football Association (IFA).

The economy ministry’s Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, in a historic break with past IFA and government policy of only
mildly chastising Beitar, summoned the club days before the Belgium incident to
justify its racist hiring policies.

The move came weeks after the IFA had narrowly pre-empted
adoption of a resolution put forward by the Palestine Football Association
(PFA) to suspend Israel’s membership in world soccer body FIFA in part because
of its failure to crack down on racism in Israeli soccer. In a compromise, the
PFA withdrew its demand in favour of the establishment of a FIFA committee that
would monitor Israeli efforts to address Palestinian grievances.

“The more deeply one looks into the reasons and motives for
Beitar’s racist conduct, the more strongly the impression emerges that the
problem stems from the forgiving attitude of the authorities around it – from
the Israel Football Association to the league administration, all the way to
ministerial level. These bodies, using various and sundry pretexts, lend a hand
to the phenomenon and allow it to exist – whether by turning a blind eye to it
or giving convoluted and evasive explanations,” Haaretz said.

“The time has come to stop talking about image, ‘education’
or ‘processes,’ and start taking practical steps. Alongside harsh penalties for
manifestations of racism, Beitar Jerusalem must be given a limited window of
time during which it will be required to sign Arab players – even at the cost
of a major confrontation with its fans. Instead of condemnation, the time has
come to act,” the paper said.

The focus on Beitar’s racism further comes on the heels of protests
in recent months by Ethiopian Israelis who first demonstrated against the
beating up in April by police of an Israeli soldier of Ethiopian extraction and
the subsequent closing of an investigation into the incident.

Ethiopian activists have since agreed to a request by the family
of Avera Mengistu not to protest against the government’s handling of his
disappearance in Gaza some ten months ago. The government issued a gag order on
reporting of the incident that was lifted earlier this month under pressure
from the media and various politicians. As a result of the gag order, even
members of Mr. Netanyahu’s security cabinet and parliament’s foreign affairs
and security committee were kept in the dark

Similarly, Mr. Netanyahu did not visit the Ethiopian family
until earlier this month and only after his hostages and missing persons
coordinator, Col. (Res.) Lior Lotan, was forced to apologize for telling the
family that their son's release would be delayed if they criticized the prime
minister.

Col. Lotan also insisted that the family refrain from
connecting the government’s handling of their son’s case to the Ethiopian
protests against discrimination. “I’m going to tell you this in the toughest
way possible: Whoever puts on Avera the story of what’s between the Ethiopians
and the State of Israel will leave him in Gaza for another year,” Col. Lotan
was heard saying on tape.

Mr. Mengistu was detained after he climbed over a fence to
enter Gaza. Hamas said it had released him after questioning but was still
holding an Israeli Bedouin who legally crossed into Gaza in April. Mr. Mengistu
is still missing.

Israeli media charged that the government had kept Mr.
Mengistu’s disappearance secret because of his skin colour, noting that his
family speaks poor Hebrew, lives in poverty, and does not have the wherewithal to
stand up for their son’s rights.

Some analysts argue that the government’s handling of the
case of Mr. Mengistu and the Bedouin, whose name has not been released, are not
unique. Families of past Hamas prisoners and soldiers missing in action who are
not of Ethiopian or Arab descent said they too had been humiliated and forcibly
silenced by the government during their ordeal.

Nevertheless, the combustible mix of Israel’s image being on
the line as a result of the violence of Beitar fans as well as Palestinian
soccer efforts to force changes in Israeli policy, the protests against discrimination
against dark-skinned Israelis, and the disappearance of Israeli nationals in
Gaza puts Israeli racism in the spotlight. Israel cannot afford to be seen to
be ignoring a dark side of its society and culture.

James M.
Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute
of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the
same title.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

RSIS Commentary is a platform to provide timely
and, where appropriate, policy-relevant commentary and analysis of topical
issues and contemporary developments. The views of the authors are their own
and do not represent the official position of the S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies, NTU. These commentaries may be reproduced electronically
or in print with prior permission from RSIS and due recognition to the
author(s) and RSIS. Please email: RSISPublications@ntu.edu.sgfor feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentary, Yang
Razali Kassim.

No. 153/2015 dated
15 July 2015

Anti-Chinese Protests
in Turkey:

Relations with China
Under Test

By James M. Dorsey

Synopsis

Protests
in Turkey against alleged repression of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang have put
China’s sensitive relationships with the Muslim world to the test. The protests
raise the spectre of China’s restrictive policy towards the Uighurs muddying
relations with other Muslim nations as well.

Commentary

CHINA AND
TURKEY had high hopes when Prime Minister Wen Jiabao on a 2010 visit to Ankara
negotiated a strategic partnership, that envisioned Turkey helping China quell
a simmering insurgency in its north-western autonomous region of Xinjiang.

The deal, a year after then Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused China of genocide in Xinjiang, involved a
halt to Turkish support for Uighur secessionist groups. It promised mutual
economic benefit and Turkish leverage at both ends of the Silk Road Economic
Belt that Beijing hopes to revive across the Eurasian land mass. Together with
the Maritime Silk Road in what Beijing calls the “One Belt One Road” project,
this comprises a network of roads, railways, ports and pipeline that China
expects will link it to the Middle East and Europe via Central, Southeast and
South Asia.

High hopes

In recognition of the fact that Uighurs
historically have always looked West towards their Turkic cousins rather than
East at the Han Chinese, China encouraged Turkey to invest in Xinjiang on
preferential terms in the hope that greater Turkish influence would dampen
nationalist sentiment in the region that has been on the rise since the 1989
Tiananmen Square protests. Chinese expectations of Turkey’s potentially
moderating influence were also reflected in China’s decision to send religious
students to Turkey rather than to Islamic centres of learning in the Arab
world.

Close relations were further highlighted by
Ankara considering the acquisition of a Chinese surface-to-air missile system
and Turkey becoming the first country in which a Chinese bank would operate an
overseas business with the acquisition of Tekstilbank by Industrial and
Commercial Bank of China, the world’s largest bank.

China had hoped that by enlisting Turkey it
would be able to counter US support for Uighur activists that it viewed as an
effort to create problems for Beijing in its own backyard. Chinese concerns
have since been heightened by the fact that an estimated 300 Chinese Muslims
have joined the Islamic State (IS) in Syria whose leader, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi,
described China as one of the worst violators of Muslim rights.

War of words

Those hopes now threaten to be mired in a war
of words between Beijing and Ankara sparked by Uighur nationalist protests
against Chinese discrimination, including a ban on fasting during Ramadan and
the forced opening of restaurants during daytime fasting hours.

The ban was introduced at the tail end of a
failed year-long government campaign against what it termed “terrorism” and
“illegal religious activity” that involved strict controls of sermons in
mosques, closure of a number of Islamic schools and restrictions on traditional
dress.

Nationalist Turks see the ban that applies to
government employees, students and teachers – a significant segment of the
Uighur population -- as the latest of a series of restrictive measures aimed at
weakening Uighur identity and religiosity. Chinese authorities have defined
illegal religious activity among others as refusing to shake a woman’s hand;
rejection of inter-ethnic marriage; boycotting government social programmes,
and closing restaurants during Ramadan. Women’s headscarves and beards are
viewed with suspicion.

The measures have also sparked protests in
Malaysia and Cairo. The 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)
expressed concern and called on Beijing to respect Uighurs’ religious rights.
The Qatar-backed International Union of Muslim Scholars headed by prominent
Islamic scholar Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi put out a similar, more strongly
worded statement.

Turkish passions were fuelled by sensationalist
reports in pro-government media of a massacre of Uighurs while fasting and
others being forced to consume alcohol. These came amid domestic Turkish
politicking as Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu sought to forge a coalition
government in the wake of last month’s parliamentary election that failed to produce
an absolute majority for the ruling Justice and Democracy Party (AKP).

A pro-government newspaper, catering to
nationalist sentiment, published a bloodied map of Xinjiang as part of its
coverage of a visit to Beijing by a delegation from the left-wing Peoples’
Democratic Party (HDP), the first pro-Kurdish party to be represented in the
Turkish parliament. The newspaper said the HDP had gone ahead with the visit
“despite the East Turkestan torture,” a reference to Xinjiang by its Uighur and
Turkic name.

Chinese policy as core driver of unrest

In response, Chinese officials have revived
accusations that Turkey is encouraging Uighur radicalism. Tong Bishan of the
Chinese public security ministry's Criminal Investigation Department recently
told foreign correspondents that Turkish diplomats in South-east Asia had
facilitated passage of hundreds of Uighurs to Turkey from where they were being
sold to IS as "cannon fodder".

Tong was referring to the issuing of Turkish
passports to 173 Uighur refugees in Thailand to prevent their return to China.
The issue of Turkish passports has however become sensitive after the
perpetrators of an attack last year at a train station in Kunming in Yunnan
province in which 33 people were killed, were found to have been travelling on
Turkish documents.

China’s focus on external forces fuelling
unrest in Xinjiang was however called into a question by a clash with police
last month in the ancient city of Kashgar in which 28 people died. The clash’s
background suggested that Chinese policy rather than Islamist ideology may be a
core driver fuelling nationalist violence.

The attackers were reportedly members of one
family whose land had been confiscated and given to a Han Chinese.
Impoverished, the family turned to religion, only to be tackled by authorities
who forced female members to bare their hair and males to shave their beards.

The government, rather than heed warnings of
the impact of Chinese policies, has sought to silence its critics. Uighur
scholar Ilham Tohti warned in a lengthy article published after he was arrested
last year that because Chinese policies “do not address deep-seated problems,
we cannot afford to be sanguine about Xinjiang’s future, nor can we be certain
that violence will not erupt again”.

Tohti’s warning appears to be something that
China accepts as a principle to counter jihadism anywhere but in Xinjiang. In a
recent debate on US-Chinese cooperation in the Middle East, Yang Jiemian, a
senior fellow at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, argued that
“tackling root causes” was the key to combatting extremism but that “China has
other ways” that include a “strong medicine with side effects”.

It is the strong medicine that threatens to
complicate China’s relations with key players in the Muslim world, as seen in
the protests by the OIC and global Islamic leaders as well as in countries such
as Malaysia and Egypt.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S.
Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore and co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the
University of Wurzburg, Germany.

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

On December 30, 2012, the Syrian national
soccer team was received by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in his People’s
Palace, an exquisite fortress overlooking the Syrian capital from Mt. Mezzeh.
The president congratulated the team for its first-time winning of the West
Asian Football Federation Championship,[1] and
rewarded each player with an apartment, a job, and SYP150,000 (USD1500).[2] Among the red-clad players
who queued up to shake Assad’s hand was 31-year-old Mosab Balhous,[3] the
national team’s goalkeeper and former goalkeeper of Homs-based Al-Karamah SC.

Their smiling exchange put a good face on
a harsher history: 17 months earlier, on August 2, 2011, the president’s security
forces had arrested Balhous on charges of sheltering armed gangs and possessing
suspicious amounts of money.[4] The
goalkeeper’s home city of Homs, popularly dubbed the “Capital of the
revolution”, has been under regime attack since April 2011, and its Baba Amr
district has served as a refuge for army defectors.

Now, with civil war devouring Syria for a
fifth year, Syrian soccer seemed to be doing fine. Thanks to the Assad regime’s
calculated support, three of its national teams and two local clubs have
qualified for regional and international tournaments. These wins serve a
distinct political purpose: a victorious soccer team burnishes Assad’s
credentials as a secular leader still in control of his country, in stark
contrast to the Islamic State (IS), which flogs people for wearing soccer
jerseys.

The Rulers of the Game

Today, 14 clubs play in
the highest division in the country. In April 2015, Syria’s National Soccer
Team jumped 26 places in the FIFA World Ranking to 126th internationally and
15th on the Asian level; in May, it rose further to 125th.[5]
The national team also made it to the second round of
qualifiers for the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the 2019 Asia Cup,[6] while
the Olympic Soccer Team qualified for the finals of the 2016 AFC U-23 Asian Cup
in Qatar.[7]
Syria's Junior Soccer Team has qualified for the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Chile,[8] and
Al-Jaish and Al-Wahda clubs for the advanced stages of the Asian Cup
Championship.[9]

These successes have come despite
international sanctions on Syria, which have resulted in FIFA freezing $2,250,000
according to the Syrian General Sports Federation (GSF) though experts believe
it could be much more that was earmarked for the Syrian Football Association
(SFA).[10] The Assad regime is
working to prove that this money will only go towards developing soccer and
will not be used to fund political or military activities. The Baath Party, the
country’s official ruling party, nonetheless, continues to control sports. GSF
sources said that party appoint GSF members.

State investment in soccer
also continues although no hard data is available. GSF president Maj. Gen.
Muwafaq Jomaa said last March that 30% of
the sports budget went to soccer and the rest was allocated to 29 other
disciplines. “We thank the political leadership and the government for the
support. Sports have become politics, art and a national state [through which]
we [in GSF] represent our dear homeland [abroad] in an honest way,” Jomaa told he state-run Al-Ikhbaria television[11]

Control is further exercised through the
GSF’s refusal to give the SFA independent authority over its own budget. The
GSF has accused the SFA of trying to form “another republic inside the GSF” on
the back of FIFA’s ban on government interference. “The GSF, the government and
the political leadership [the National Security Bureau of the Baath Party] do
not accept that the SFA is subordinated to the FIFA. This is against [our]
laws. If there are regulations from the FIFA that the SFA has to apply, it has
to apply it. We do not mind that,” Jomaa said.[12]

A Favorite Fiefdom

Soccer has long been the most popular game
in Syria, and as such a favorite tool for the regime’s self-promotion. In 1981, the late president
Hafiz al-Assad issued a series of decrees that ensured social and financial security
for champion athletes who finished in any of the first three places at the
Arab, Asian, Mediterranean and Olympic Games.[13]Five years after the Hama massacre of
1982, in which Syrian Army units in a brutal crackdown on the Muslim
Brotherhood razed the city and killed as many as 40,000 residents,[14] the
late president told14 guest countries participating in the 10th Mediterranean
Games in Latakia that “we want the land [of Syria to be] a land of peace and
friendship…the [Mediterranean] Sea to be a sea of peace and friendship with
seagulls flying over it, not planes of murder and destruction…[and] the
Mediterranean region to be the nucleus of the World’s peace, from which doves
of peace are released to spread in the sky.”[15]

Syrian media played up Syria’s defeat of
France 2:1 despite the fact that the games cost Syria $300 million it could
ill-afford in a time of economic downturn.[16] Keeping
that memory alive proved at times easier said than done. Hafez Al-Assad’s
eldest son Basil, an avid equestrian who headed an annual tournament in
commemoration of the soccer victory, lost a horse race in 1993 to Adnan Qassar,
the leader of the Syrian equestrian team. Qassar was promptly arrested on
charges of attempting to assassinate Basil and imprisoned without trial for 21
years in Tadmur prison. He was finally released in June 2014 by a presidential
amnesty granted by Basil’s younger brother Bashar, who inherited the presidency
in 2000 after the death of his father and the earlier passing of his brother in
a car crash.[17]

Syria’s most feared informal militias, or shabiha,
formed in the eighties from the ranks of Assad relatives and supporters, also
kept a hand in local athletics, including soccer. Their founder, Fawaz
al-Assad,[18] was
a cousin of the late president and controlled the port of Latakia with its
smuggling routes. Fawaz was also a supporter of the city’s Tishreen soccer team
before becoming its honorary president.[19] Latakia
soccer fans recall Fawaz coming once to the Al-Assad Stadium with a helicopter
and talks with the referees before the game to ensure that his team would win
the game.

Bashar al-Assad carried on his elders’
tradition of using an unsporting degree of force against opponents, athletic
and otherwise. In mid-March, 2004, around 40 Kurdish civilians were killed in
Qamishli, northeast Syria, after riots broke out between Kurdish and Arab
soccer fans.[20]
Hundreds of Kurds were injured and around 2,000 were tortured in the regime’s
jails after they had demanded an investigation into the forced disappearance of
Kurdish civil society activist and Sunni religious leader Sheikh Mashook
al-Khaznawi.[21] In
June 2005, the Kurdish protests erupted again against alleged government's
involvement in the assassination of Khaznawi.[22]

Soccer also figured
prominently in government efforts to manage relations with neighboring
countries in the wake of the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri allegedly at Syria’s behest as well as with domestic critics opposed to
the regime’s decision to liberalize the economy. Al-Assad
more frequently attended soccer matches where fans chanted, “Oh, Bashar, raise
your hand!,” a request he gladly honored.

Blood on the Field

The eruption in 2011 of mass
anti-government protests triggered by the arrest and torture of school-age
children in Dera’a who wrote anti-government graffiti on walls[23] set
Syria on a path of civil war that significantly weakened the Assad regime and
virtually destroyed the country. Mahmoud al-Jawabra, a 24-year old player for
Dera’a’s Al-Shouleh SC who was among four demonstrators killed by security
forces four days after the arrests became an icon of the initially peaceful
protestors and the first casualty of the revolt.[24]

The Dera’a protests quickly spread to
other Syrian cities, where Assad’s forces turned sports stadiums into detention
centers and military bases. Damascus’ Abbasiyyin Stadium, which had hosted a
holy mass by Pope John Paul II in 2001,[25] has since
been used as a military base from which the Syrian Army launches rockets into
neighboring opposition-controlled districts such as Ghouta and Douma.[26]

Al-Jawabra was
soon joined by other athletes who opposed the regime, including Ghazi Zoghaib, the
head of Al-Karamah and former head of the Homs branch of the Baath Party; his
wife in Baba Amr;[27]
Al-Karamah soccer player Ahmad Suwaidan who was killed during the military’s
shelling of the Al-Karabees neighborhood of Homs;[28] Al-Karamah and Syrian
Junior Soccer Team player Abdul Rahman Al-Sabbouh killed in a massacre in Baba
Amr;[29] and Homs’ Al Wathbah SC player Youssef
Suleiman, a player from the Homs-based al-Wathbah Club killed in a mortar
attack near Tishreen Stadium in central Damascus;[30] In May 2013, the photo of
the body of Ahmad Othman a 14-year-old Syrian boy wearing an FC Barcelona soccer
jersey, went viral on social media. Othman and his family had been killed when
Assad’s forces shelled the town of al-Baydah near Banyas.[31]

The General Association for Sports and
Youth in Syria (GASY)[32][33], an
opposition sports organization, has documented the killing of 217 Syrian
athletic personnel who have been killed in the war so far. GASY blames the
Assad’s regime for those losses. Images of several athletes were found in late
March and early April among leaked pictures of bodies of people tortured and
killed in the regime’s jails. Among pictures circulated by activists circulated
were the remains of Mohammad Abdul Rahman Zarefeh [34], Syria’s
Judo Champion and National Team player; Iyad Quaider[35], an
al-Wahda player; and Louay al-Omar, a former player at al-Karamah[36].

Their pictures were among 55,000 images of
11,000 dead prisoners smuggled out by a former military police photographer who
called himself Caesar. A report based on this evidence produced by three former
international prosecutors and sponsored by Qatar asserted that the Syrian
regime had systematically killed and tortured about 11,000 people.[37]

The regime denies responsibility and has
charged that athletes had been killed by terrorist groups. It asserted, for
example, that basketball player-coach Nour Aslou was killed in February as she
left the Al-Assad Sports Hall in Aleppo by a terrorist sniper.[38]
Opposition forces rejected the accusation, saying that the area where Aslou was
killed was more than 2 km away from opposition-controlled areas of Aleppo.[39] By
the same token, opposition forces have taken credit for the killing of athletes
such as Syrian boxing champion Ghiath Tayfour who was accused of cooperating
with security forces against protesters.[40]

Protest chants when the demonstrations
first erupted in 2011, were often based on popular football songs composed by
national youth soccer team goalkeeper Abdul Baset Al-Saroot, a leader of the
revolt in Homs. Together with another player, Tarek Intabli, a left-winger at Homs’
Al-Wathbah SC, Al-Saroot was among the Homs rebels who negotiated an initial
withdrawal the Syrian Army from the city.[41] Intabli
was killed in March 2015 in a rebel effort to take control of Idlib.[42] Al-Saroot,
following the killing by security forces of his four brothers and an uncle,[43]
swore allegiance to IS in late 2014.[44]
IS-affiliated Twitter accounts denounced him five months later as "a
traitor to Islam" for leaving IS to join Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch
of al Qaeda and a major opponent of IS.[45]

A
Vicious Tie

In February, Assad
insisted that Syria is not a failed state “as long as the government and state
institutions are fulfilling their duty towards the Syrian people”.[46]By promoting its soccer achievements, the regime aims
to show that Syria is a state where the army is in control and institutions are
functioning. The basis of this projection is the regime’s control over central
Damascus and other city centers, primarily Homs and the coastal cities of
Latakia and Tartous.

Projection of the regime’s strength on the
pitch is focused on the performance of clubs like Al-Jaish (The Army), which is
sponsored by the Defense Ministry and qualified for the quarter-finals of the 2015
AFC Asian Cup. [47]
Another regime darling, Al-Wahda, failed to qualify after it was defeated by Tajikistan’s
Istiqlol football in a 4-2 penalty shootout.[48] Al-Wahda is sponsored by
Muhammad Hamsho on whom the United States has imposed sanction for allegedly
fronting for Assad’s brother, Gen. Maher al-Assad in financial transactions and
the acquisition of wealth through cronyism.[49] Al-Wahda won the Premier
League Championship in 2014 after defeating Al-Jaish[50] and in July 2015
qualified for the finals of the Republic Football Cup. The performance of the
two clubs despite the war highlighted the importance the regime attributes to Damascus
where wealth, development, security, and mass mobilization has been concentrated
in the past.

The clubs’ successes failed however to
mask the devastation of more than four years of war in which more than 200,000
people have been killed, more than nine million people have lost their homes,[51] and
90% of Syrians are considered to be poor.[52] The regime’s loss of large swaths of territory has moreover
deprived it of enormous resources.

Many Syrian football
teams have suffered corresponding losses. Five
years ago, Al-Karamah of Homs and Al-Ittihad of Aleppo represented Syria in the
same Asian Cup Championship in which Damascus teams are now the sole Syrian
competitors. But after the destruction of their cities, they are no longer
among the top teams in the local league. Once funded by top businessmen from
their own cities, they now rely on GSF sponsorship, which continues to seek
access to the frozen FIFA funds.

Given Syrian soccer’s strong ties with the
regime’s military and security wings, gaining access to FIFA funding remains a
long shot. “FIFA probably believes that the Syrian football authority won’t be
able to use the money on football activities,” a Damascus-based journalist and
football expert said. “With the full control of the Baath Party over the GSF,
and clubs like Al-Jaish sponsored by the Defense Ministry and Al-Shorta funded
by the Interior Ministry, FIFA would think twice before sending money to the
Syrian Football Association.”

Syrian soccer players have but a few bad
options: die under torture or from a sniper’s bullet, join an Islamist
organization or the Syrian army, be a PR tool for the Assad regime, or flee the
country. Syrian soccer players competing abroad largely chose the latter. The
most recent player to do so was Mohammad Jaddoua, captain of Syria's Junior
Football Team that qualified for the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in Chile. Jaddoua
illegally left Syria for Germany in April 2015 in search of a better future.
His departure made him an outlaw with the Syrian Football Federation banning
the team’s members from travelling abroad.[53]

The participation of Syrian players in
competitions hosted by Qatar, which the Syrian regime accuses of “sponsoring
terrorist organizations in Syria”, has also been anathema for the regime since
November of 2011, when Syria announced that it would not participate in the
Arab Games in Qatar. Its boycott was in protest against the Arab League's
decision to suspend Syrian membership.In
a statement directed to international and Arab Olympic and sports committees,
the Syrian Olympic Committee and the GSF said that “Syrian athletes will adhere
to resistance and confronting the conspiracy against Syria,” according state-run
news agency SANA.[54]

Even if Syrian players want to join their
national team, many of them face extensive problems. Some have yet to fulfill
their compulsory military service, while others have expressed their sympathy
with the Syrian revolution; either one is enough to get them arrested whenever
they land in Syria. Such treasonous
expressions have guaranteed that neither Firas Al-Khatib, the former captain of
Syria’s National Soccer Team and now a striker for Kuwait’s Al-Arabi Sporting
Club, nor Jehad Al Hussain, a midfielder with Al-Taawoun of the Saudi
Professional League, will join the national team. Both of these players from
Homs condemned the massacres committed by regime forces, especially in their
own city.[55]

However, the Baath Party ensured that 26
year-old striker Omar Al Soma, who plays for Saudi Arabia’s Al Ahli and is one
of the kingdom’s top scorers, would be allowed to play for the Syrian national
team without repercussions despite the fact that he has yet to fulfill his
military service and reports that he supported the uprising.[56]

For players who want to represent the
opposition in exile, a new soccer front has recently been established. Walid
al-Muhaidi, head of the opposition [Free] Syrian National Football Team
(FSNFT), said in May that players were training in a camp in Turkey.[57] Muhaidi is a former SFA
member who in October 2013 said he had defected with some 100 other athletes
from Deir ez-Zor.[58] His
new team’s jerseys are green, the color of the revolution as opposed to the red
of Syria’s national team.

“A message to those footballers who are carrying
this flag of [the regime], the flag of blood,” one FSNFT player told the
opposition radio of the Nsaeem Syria FM. “Leave such a criminal team. It is not
Syria’s team, it is the team of a criminal regime.” Said another player: “I am
honored to join it to prove to people that we can be up to the expectations of
the rebels.”

Meanwhile, in the Syrian capital, the game
goes on, even as the façade of normalcy it is meant to represent appears
increasingly hollow. In April,[59] the
month Syrians celebrate their country’s independence, Israeli fighter jets struck
Syrian Army weapons caches. And though huge
pictures of President Bashar al-Assad were recently installed in the Damascus
stadiums of Tishreen, al-Jalaa and al-Fayhaa, they loom over mostly empty seats,
since for the past four football seasons spectators have rarely been allowed
audience to attend football matches.

Viewers tuning
in to one of the soccer league games broadcast live
from Damascus and Lattakia can see that the spectacle is flagging. As the play
shifts back and forth, only a handful of spectators at best look on, and the
roar of the crowd has long been displaced by the sounds of bombing and gunfire
intensifying just outside the frame.

FACT BOX

History
repeats itself

Soccer in Syria is a microcosm of the
Syrian regime’s overall response to the protests that began in 2011. Instead of
addressing the problem, the regime chose first to deny it. When that did not
work, they regime used excessive force.

Similarly, although the Syrian National
Team was banned from the 2014 World Cup qualifiers by FIFA for fielding an
ineligible player, no one has so far been held accountable for that
administrative mistake,[60] nor has anyone apologized
for it.

But overlooking or even encouraging
corruption is nothing new in Syrian athletics. In the first decade of this
millennium, the GSF faced several accusations of corruption, most of which were
covered up by political interventions. In June 2009, the Syrian football league
was rocked by allegations of match-fixing and institutional corruption that
resulted in two of the country’s biggest clubs being temporarily expelled from
the league.

Backed by their connections with the
security forces, the two clubs took their cases to the GSF, accusing members of
the SFA of being corrupt. The GSF illegally commissioned the Syrian Olympic
Committee to investigate into the accusations. The committee’s investigation
found the accusations leveled at the SFA by the two clubs to be true, so the
GSF dissolved the SFA and gave the two clubs the green light to continue
playing in the first division. FIFA in turn denounced the dissolution and
called for the reinstatement of the SFA.

Throughout this scandal, just as
anti-Assad protestors were described as “infiltrators”, “mercenaries” and
“conspirators”, General Farouk Bouzo, then-serving president of the GSF, said
the SFA had no right to take its complaints to FIFA, saying, “Those who went to
FIFA have been conspiring against their country.”

On August 12, 2009, the Ba’ath Party waded
into the matter by asking five of the nine SFA board members – who are
Baathists – to resign.

[32] The
General Association for Sports and Youth in Syria defines itself as a ‘Syrian
sports NGO that takes care of the free Syrian sports people’. By ‘free’ the
organization refers to sports people who, in support of the Syrian revolution,
have stopped playing under the umbrella of Assad’s government. NGO’s Facebook
page: (https://www.facebook.com/Sport.Youth.In.Syria?fref=photo).

Sporticos

Ads

Soccer Results

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer does not promote, link to or provide videos from any online sources who distribute illegal streaming content over the Internet with domains registered in the United States of America

Top 100 Soccer Sites

Subscribe To

Subscribe by Email

About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile